Yeslem

Yaslem is a 51-year-old married man with four children; they live in a house in Mokala, Yemen. His oldest child is 17 years old and the youngest is one year old. Yaslem studied through elementary school, but because of the miserable conditions his family was living in, he couldn't complete his study. The main source of income for people in Mokala is raising and reselling livestock, a livelihood whose knowledge Yaslem inherited from his parents.

Currently, Yaslem has a small number of goats, but he wants to increase his capital. For this reason, he applied for a loan of 70,000 YER to buy more livestock to raise and resell.

Yeslem's dream is to have a large farm that will allow him to generate the financial income he needs to improve his family's living condition.

Additional Information

More information about this loan

This loan is part of a joint program between Al Amal and the Social Welfare Fund in Yemen to reach the extreme poor who are dependent on grants from the state's Social Safety Net. Al Amal enables these borrowers to establish new enterprises and grow existing ones so they can boost their income and stop living on government funds. By funding this loan, you are empowering the extreme poor in Yemen to lift themselves out of poverty.

About Al-Amal Microfinance Bank

Al-Amal reaches out to low-income micro-entrepreneurs and small business owners in Yemen with a suite of credit, savings, and insurance products tailored for Muslim borrowers. Before lending through Al-Amal, please consider the following:

1) Due to ongoing security concerns, full due-diligence of Al-Amal was conducted remotely rather than on-site. This makes Al-Amal atypical among Kiva's Field Partners, as Kiva staff have not conducted an on-site assessment. Al-Amal's assessment included in-person meetings with the top management in other, more secure locations in the Middle East.

2) Because Yemen is a new and unstable environment, there is a possibility that future loan repayments could be held indefinitely in the country for regulatory reasons, even if individual borrowers pay back their loans. As a lender to borrowers in Yemen, you accept this additional risk.

Additionally, all of Al-Amal's products are Sharia compliant and customized for its Muslim clients. Most of the loans are structured as Murabaha interest free loans. Al-Amal purchases goods for its borrowers and charges them a markup or fee. Al-Amal is also experimenting with Ijarah loans (an Islamic leasing product). For more information on Islamic microfinance, please click here.